Just a Boy Page 8

  ‘It’s Casey, love. Casey and Mike, I told you.’

  ‘Erm, Casey?’ he asked anxiously. ‘You know you mustn’t put them in the washing machine don’t you? Or they’ll get ruined.’

  I grinned. ‘Message received and understood. And don’t worry, love. My son Kieron – you’ll meet him in the next day or two – he’s pretty pernickety about his stuff, as well, so I’ve had lots of practice.’

  He looked relieved at this. ‘Glenn said you had other kids. Does he live here?’

  I shook my head as I began helping him unpack his clothes, all of which, unusually, were good quality. ‘Both my children are grown-up now,’ I explained, ‘though they live nearby. One of them – my daughter Riley, who you’ll meet too – even has two little ones of her own. Just a little younger …’ I caught the words before they had a chance to run away from me. This was definitely not the time to start mentioning his younger siblings. Time for that later. Right now, it would probably only upset him. ‘… than the last little girl we had to stay with us,’ I quickly improvised. ‘Talking of which,’ I added. ‘Her favourite thing in the whole wide world was pizza. So how about you? If you could have anything you wanted – anything in the world – for your tea tonight, what would it be?’

  He seemed to consider for a moment, tapping his finger against his lip. ‘I don’t mind,’ he said eventually. ‘Anything is fine.’

  I shook my head. ‘No it isn’t. Come on, think.’

  ‘I don’t mind, really.’

  My heart went out to him. It was obviously proving difficult for him to express a preference, because he’d been taught that that wouldn’t be polite. He was such a mystery, this little boy, this apparent ‘monster’ in our midst, and I wondered quite when we’d be seeing him.

  By now we’d almost finished putting away all his clothes, and I was struck again, seeing how carefully he folded them all, at how he seemed so unlike any child in the care system I’d come across; my end of the care system, anyway.

  ‘I’m afraid I insist,’ I said, mock-sternly. ‘It’s part of the rules. You tell me all the things you like, and then I cook them. No point giving you things to eat that you don’t like, is there? So. We already know about how much you love sprouts, don’t we? So as soon as they’re in the shops, I’ll get lots of them in …’

  This seemed to do it. ‘Meatballs with spaghetti?’ he suggested, blinking at me nervously. ‘I really like them …’

  ‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘Because that’s Mike’s favourite too. And that’s with sprouts, then, is it?’

  At which he finally cracked a smile.

  The day continued in a similarly positive vein. Mike had gone into work for a couple of hours and I was happy enough to let Spencer play on his computer games for a while, and also rigged up the PlayStation for him. I knew people worried about kids spending too much time glued to screens these days, and I certainly accepted whatever evidence there was, but at the same time I didn’t hold with the often-touted line that this kind of media was always the enemy. In my experience, new kids always seemed to settle better when allowed access to favourite computer games. They needed to be age-appropriate, obviously, but I saw more good than harm in them having some ‘down time’ of this kind. It really did seem to help kids calm down, particularly if they bordered on the hyperactive. Many games also had positive educational benefits, helping kids focus and concentrate.

  Whatever the intellectual debates about it, when Mike returned home from the warehouse Spencer seemed a lot more relaxed. He was also less timid now, and a pleasure to sit and chat to, and he turned out, as we sat around the table and ate the spaghetti and meatballs, to be very knowledgeable about football. Which was brilliant, because football loomed large in the Watson family. Both Mike and Kieron loved it and Kieron played it, too. The ritual of Mike going to watch him play every Saturday was one of those commitments that were pretty much set in stone.

  The only snag was that Spencer turned out to be a fan of Aston Villa, whereas Mike was a dyed in-the-wool Leeds fan. This naturally resulted in a more heated discussion, in which a string of not very nice names were applied to a long list of people I had never heard of.

  ‘I think I’ll just clear the table and start the washing up,’ I said, as Mike pointed out to Spencer all the reasons why some player on one of their teams should not have done this, that or the other, and Spencer came back with an equally measured argument about why, in this case, Mike was wrong.

  The net result was that both of them completely failed to hear me, so I gathered the plates and took them back into the kitchen. I didn’t mind. There was nothing Mike enjoyed more than a bit of banter about football around the tea table, something he’d really missed since Kieron had left home. And it sounded as if Spencer really knew his stuff, too.

  I smiled as I began filling the sink and rolled my sleeves up. I knew how the adage went. ‘No smoke without fire.’ And I wasn’t stupid, either. Little Spencer, delightful as he had seemed to be so far, was living under my roof for a reason. But right now, much as I was braced for whatever was coming, I couldn’t feel anything but positive about him. Just how bad could this boy possibly be?

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  Chapter 1

  I love my family. I really do. They’re the best in the world in almost every respect. But sometimes they do tend to gang up on me.

  ‘Mum, that’s bonkers,’ my daughter Riley said, as I brandished the clutch of paint-colour cards I had collected that morning from the local DIY superstore. ‘You said it yourself. Trust me, I remember very clearly. You said, “The upstairs is just fine as it is.”’

  ‘Perfect,’ my husband Mike chipped in pointedly. I glared at him. ‘Honest!’ he persisted, ignoring it. ‘That’s what you said, love. That the whole house was perfect. Perfect as it was, you said. Remember?’

  That was true, certainly. But I chose to pretend I hadn’t heard him. Instead I looked at my Kieron, for support. If I could rely on one person at this point, it would be my son. He wouldn’t let them browbeat me in this scurrilous fashion, surely? But I was sorely mistaken.

  ‘Come on, you did, Mum,’ he said, his face a picture of innocence, even as he threw me to the lions. ‘And we did do the downstairs …’

  ‘The whole of the downstairs,’ added Riley. ‘And in a week. Look. I still have the blisters to prove it!’

  I fanned my rainbow of blues and pinks and fixed them all with a steely glare. ‘All right then,’ I said. ‘I’ll be the little red hen, then. I shall just have to do it by myself!’

  Except I wouldn’t. I knew I’d talk them round eventually.

  That had been a week back, and true to my prediction I had managed to persuade Mike of the logic of my plan, and with him on board the kids had caved in and helped too. It had been, I’d decided, an inspired idea. With one bedroom for us, and one earmarked for visitors, we had two bedrooms free for our fostering needs. Two bedrooms, to my mind, meant one blue and one pink. That way, I explained to Mike, we’d be always at the ready, whichever gender John Fulshaw sent us next. John Fulshaw was our fostering-agency link worker, and a dear friend. He’d trained us, and had been by our sides ever since.

  ‘Save time and money doing it this way in the long run,’ I’d pointed out. And I knew Mike couldn’t argue with that. We’d been fostering for four years now and had no thoughts of stopping, so being prepared for anything – and anyone – made sense. Though back at the start, when we’d taken in our first foster child, Justin, I had, I knew, gone slightly overboard. So much so that, when he left us, and our next child was a girl, it was no small task changing our boy’s room to a girl’s room. I’d gone so mad I’d football themed almost everything in it, right down to the border, the carpet, the clock and the curtains – I’d even painted footballs on the bookcase!

  And, as ever, the family rallied round, just as they had this t
ime. It seemed incredible to think we’d been in our new home for barely a month. It was the beginning of February now, and we’d only moved in a couple of days before Christmas. If it hadn’t been for everyone pitching in to get the place the way I wanted it – what with the holidays, and having just waved goodbye to our last foster child, Spencer – I felt sure that I wouldn’t have felt half as settled as I did.

  But, yes, Mike was right, the house was perfect. It had been perfect when we’d viewed it, and was even more perfect now. I could barely believe our luck, really. We’d been eighteen years in our last house, and it had been something of a wrench leaving our children’s childhood home. There were just so many happy memories wrapped up in it.

  And it had been a stressful situation that had prompted it, as well. The move had actually been brought about because of problems with Spencer. He’d been a particularly challenging child to foster, to put it mildly, and his antics (at just eight he’d already been like a one-boy walking crime spree) had caused a lot of upset in the neighbourhood. We weren’t exactly forced out, but a great deal of bad feeling had developed, and it had hit home that bringing children such as this into our lives could (and in this case did) have an impact on others, too.

  It had certainly forced us to think about the future. And as soon as we’d sat down and considered our options, we realised the timing was right anyway. Not that we’d downsized. Though our own children had flown the nest (Kieron was settled with his girlfriend Lauren, and Riley and her partner David even had two little ones of their own) we’d moved house with children very much still in mind. Our new place was that little bit further out of town, that bit more open and leafy, that bit more suited to serving our fostering needs.

  And now, I thought, as I looked around my two freshly painted bedrooms, the house itself was, as well. Now all I needed was a child to put in one of them.

  ‘So is there anything in the pipeline?’ Riley asked me, having admired both the makeovers. It was Tuesday lunchtime, and Levi, my eldest grandson, was back in nursery full time now, so she’d brought baby Jackson over for a sandwich and a natter before going to pick him up. It seemed impossible to me – almost like the blink of an eye – that my first grandson was three now, and that Jackson would be one year old next month.

  Impossible but true. Where had all the time gone? I shook my head. ‘Not as yet,’ I told Riley. ‘Though when I spoke to John last week he seemed to think there might be another little boy coming up. With mainstream carers at the moment, but they’re apparently struggling to cope with him. Multiple issues,’ I went on. ‘And some really entrenched disturbing behaviours, by all accounts. John’s kind of put us on standby while they decide what to do.’

  Riley laughed. ‘I bet your ears pricked up straight away,’ she commented. ‘Multiple issues … disturbed behaviours … Sounds right up your street, Mum.’

  Which was true; it was exactly why I’d come into fostering. I’d already been thinking about it when I first saw the advertisement for the agency – back when I’d been working as a behaviour manager in a large comprehensive school. An ad seeking people who actively wanted to take on challenging children, the children the system was failing to cope with. ‘Fostering the unfosterable’ had been the slogan. And it had gripped me straight away. It was what I did at school. It was what I felt I was best at. Oh, yes, I thought, challenging was right up my street.

  I nodded. ‘But that was last week,’ I said, as we headed back downstairs. ‘I thought I might have heard back by now. I might call him later, as it happens. See what the score is …’

  Riley rolled her eyes. ‘You just can’t do it, Mum, can you?’

  ‘Do what?’ I asked her.

  She burst out laughing. ‘Do nothing!’

  I didn’t call John in the end. After all, if he had a child for us he’d have called me about them, wouldn’t he? But there was no denying I leapt for my mobile when I heard it buzzing at me the following afternoon. Riley was spot on. I was no good at doing nothing. And since I couldn’t take a job – that was a stipulation for our kind of intense fostering – without a child in, I’d soon be climbing all those freshly painted walls. There was only so much cushion plumping a woman can do and stay sane – even a clean freak like me.

  And it wasn’t just through lack of an occupation that I was bored. Now we’d moved house, Mike, who was a warehouse manager, had a slightly longer journey to work and back every day, and with us new to the area, filling the day was itself a challenge. I needed to get out and about, make new friends and get to know the neighbours. But all of these things would take time.

  It was also still winter, the days short and mostly murky, not really conducive yet to ambling round the neighbourhood, striking up conversations with strangers. And though our new garden was delighting me almost daily with tantalisingly unidentifiable green shoots, I’d never been much of a one for sitting around. I might be a grandma, but I was still only forty-four. A new challenge was exactly what I wanted.

  I was in luck. I picked up my mobile to find John’s name on the display. ‘John,’ I said. ‘How very nice to hear from you. Are we on?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ he said, piquing my interest immediately. ‘Though, if you’re up for it, it’s going to be something of a change of plan.’

  ‘Oh?’ I asked, intrigued, pulling out a kitchen chair to sit down. He sounded a little tired and I wondered what he might have been up to. His wasn’t an everyday sort of job, for sure.

  ‘Well, if you and Mike are amenable, that is.’

  ‘You already said that,’ I said. ‘Which sounds ominous in itself.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he was quick to correct me. ‘Not in the way you probably mean, anyway. I mean as in we’re no longer planning on lining you up with that lad we talked about. Got something of an emergency situation on our hands. It’s a girl. Nine years old. Rather unusual scenario for us. I’ve spent most of the day at the General as it happens.’

  ‘The hospital?’

  ‘Yup. Got a call from social services first thing. The mother’s quite ill. She has multiple sclerosis –’

  ‘Oh, the poor thing.’

  ‘Yes, the whole situation’s pretty grim, frankly. Collapsed this morning, by all accounts, while out trying to buy her daughter a birthday present – she’s going to be ten soon. The little girl’s called Abigail, by the way – Abby – and she’s obviously terribly distraught. Looks like Mum’s going to have to be hospitalised for a period. And there is no other family, which means they have no choice but to …’

  ‘… take her into care?’ My heart went out to her. The poor child. Not to mention the poor mother. Having their lives ripped apart so suddenly like this. ‘No family at all?’ I asked.

  ‘Two second cousins, that’s all, both of whom live hundreds of miles away. And they’re not remotely close. Never even met the daughter, let alone know her. So it’s not workable. The last thing anyone wants is for little Abby to be dragged off somewhere, when Mum’s here in hospital, as you can imagine. So she’s had a social worker appointed – Bridget Conley. Have you come across her?’

  The name was familiar, but I didn’t think our paths had yet crossed. But I was more interested in how Mike and I fitted into this. From what John was telling me this was a pretty straightforward scenario. A routine foster placement while a care package was presumably put in place for the mother so that they could both go home. Short term. Crisis management. Not the sort of thing Mike and I were needed for. Our speciality involved long-term placements and a defined behaviour-management programme, and was usually for kids who’d been in the care system a long time already and/or had come from profoundly damaging backgrounds. I said as much to John.

  ‘Ah, well, that’s where this isn’t quite what you might expect, Casey. The mum’s had MS for years. Periods of remission here and there, thankfully, but her condition is quite advanced. The fact that she made it into town at all was something of a miracle, apparently. She’s pretty much housebound and
quite profoundly disabled …’

  ‘So how’s she been managing to look after her little girl, then? You say there’s no family …’

  ‘Not much of anything or anyone, really, it seems to me. Certainly no care or support in place. She’s mentioned a neighbour, but we’ve already had a clear impression that in terms of who’s looked after whom, it’s been the other way around. Little Abby’s been her carer, pretty much.’

  Which was a sobering thought, but still didn’t fully answer my question. ‘But why us?’ I asked again. ‘I mean, we’re obviously happy to step in, you know that. But if it’s only going to be temporary …’

  ‘It’s not going to be that temporary,’ John corrected me. ‘That’s what we’ve been thrashing out today. The medics have given Mum a less than good prognosis, and there’s no way in the world they’re ever going to discharge a sick patient back to the care of a nine-year-old girl. Bottom line is that even if they manage to get her stable and home, and a package of medical support put in place for her, she’s clearly not going to be in a position to care for her daughter, which leaves social services with no choice but to take responsibility for Abby, doesn’t it? That’s the truth of it. Now the genie’s out of the bottle, so to speak …’

  And the cat out of the bag, come to that. John was right, of course. Now they knew about it, they couldn’t un-know it. Which left everyone concerned in the worst of all situations. ‘God,’ I said, as the enormity of it hit home for me. I tried to imagine being told I could no longer look after my own children. Having to watch them being taken away from me, when they needed me. It hardly bore thinking about. ‘Poor, poor woman,’ I said to John. ‘She must be beside herself …’

  ‘Completely distraught,’ John agreed. ‘As you can imagine. But not stupid. She knows there’s no other choice here.’

  ‘And the poor little girl … how on earth is she dealing with all this?’